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HowToProceedPoll

The Poll (survey) on the WDDM future

Near the top of this page you'll find the most important item: 3. The summary of poll results.
If you want to follow this whole exercise chronologically, then read the page from bottom up:
Section 1 - the Poll announcement and questions
Section 2 - all responses collected (unabridged) in one place
Section 3 - summary of the essential results

11 out of the 34 members we had at the end of 2005 reacted somehow to the Poll.

3. The summary of all the poll responses

May 26, 2006

Here each question is followed by a summary of answers (as listed in the page linked to Section 2 below):

1. Why have you become a WDDM member?10 answers received:
7 or 8 of these answers are all equivalent to "I joined to make a contribution to the advancement of DD",
and the remaining 2 or 3 answers to "I joined to enjoy the company of other DD supporters, or to get support from WDDM for my local activity"
It is better to read all the replies in detail to get a full picture.

2. What should WDDM try to achieve?9 answers received, here there are abridged and compacted into groups:
1 answer: First define itself and then provide information and links about DD to national and local organizations
3 answers: Pomote and spread DD information and methods world-wide, 1 of them added to this promote local activism
1 answer: Enactment of a global DD constitution
2 answers: Achieve true global democracy
2 answers roughly meaning: It can be a number of goals depending on how WDDM will define itself
Again better read the individaul answers to get a full picture.

3. Does WDDM need a decision making mechanism (voting)?8 answers received:
7 answers: a clear YES; some adding proposals on the details of the mechanism
1 answer: Yes but only for minimal specific tasks

4. Is there any point to wait any longer that any spontaneous progress (self-organization) will be made on issues that were moved to AdjournedHistoricalTopics section?8 answers received:
7 answers: all No, don't wait any more
1 answer: unclear
Some attached additional comments:
1 - no need for more discussion, all issues should be considered aproved as no objections were raised
2 - no need to be more than a repositoray of DD resources
1 - the only decision to be made at this point is to decide on the character of the organization/association
1 - a small group of active members should finish the organizational business, others may aprove/disaprove
1 - enact for ourselves a DD constitution which gives each of us the power to question this process

5. Should instead a small group of active WDDM members formulate all the basic documents (Mission, Goals, Rules, Voting procedures)?8 answers received:
6 answers: a clear Yes
1 answer: Yes and No - a small group would be more effective, but the complete collective should be involved; WDDM has to be a democracy example of activity
1 answer: no direct answer given, just a comment

6. Do you want to be a part of the group?9 answers received:
6 answers: YES
1 answer: NO
1 answer: Association - Yes, Organisation - No
1 answer: I do not understand the question
(Thus this question gave us the Group of Active Members to complete the basic documents: Bruce Eggum, John Baker, Eric Lim, Antonio Rossin, Bernard Clayson only if we decide for an Association, Lee Gottlieb, Mirek Kolar. AlsoGeorge Kokkaswho has not participated in the poll, joined it recently.Are there more members from among those who have not responded initially, interested in joining this group?)

7. Should the WDDM mailing list be fully moderated (any postings would have to be approved by one or two moderators to avoid tons of junk mail)?8 answers received:
4 answers: Yes
1 answer: No
2 answers: mixed feelings
1 answer: this should be put to the decision making process vested by our constitution

Five "technical" questions concerning the Wiki:
Only 5 or 6 members answered. These questions are not very important any more after the installation of the Forum.
The essence of the answers:
A Bulletin Board (discussion board, forum) is better suited for WDDM discussions than a Wiki. Wiki could be also kept.
Using Wiki was generally difficult for those who never used one before.
We should explain the tools we have/introduce in much more detail to the members.
(All these suggestions have already hopefully been implemented recently.
Perhaps it's a good opportunity to add here the reply to the following comment: However,
I wouldn't relish the prospect of anyone changing my writings on the WDDM website
without first explaining the rationale ... - Wiki keeps the history of all the recent changes
made on a page and who made them - just try the 'Page History' link in the lower left corner
of each page - thus one can easily detect changes and contact the person who made them, and ask for
clarification. Also, the owner of each page can easily prevent others to change the page - see
the 'Edit ACLs' link.)

Finally there were a few additional questions proposed and interesting suggestions made:

1. How do you think WDDM's activism could be sparked?
And an answer to this question, definitely worth considering, was offered: Better give up organizational issues for now, and focus on:
a) To promote among the WDDM's members the use of the collaborative tools by sending collective emails explaining such an use.
b) Choosing ONE (appealing) project to be developed collaboratively. Any project could be valuable. Even more, we could to open a polling to choose ONE project to be developed during the next year. Only as an example, one project could be to set up a taxonomy of a democrat regime, describing and scoring its different aspects; the goal would be to create a framework where to create a yearly democracy ranking similar to the Freedom House's one (but, of course, adding Direct and Participative Democracy aspects); see: http://www.freedomhouse.org/ratings/index.htm∞

2. The following questions proposed for the members’ considerations and voting:

Would you like WDDM to be more than essentially a repository of DD resources?

2. Responses to the Dec. 18, 2005 Poll collected in one place

May 25, 2006

The responses to the Poll questions were made either in the comments part of this page, or sent by e-mail to WDDM list, and one was posted only at the WDF forum. All of these 11 responses are collected HERE. The avoid duplication, those responses that were posted as comments to this page were removed after copying them to Dec18PollResponses.

1. How To Proceed with WDDM Organizing?

Dec. 18, 2005

WebMaster made this proposal for conducting a poll among the WDDM members.
Instead of first discussing and refining these questions for the proposed period of 10 days, people started answering them right away. Therefore these questions had become the poll questions:

Proposed questions:Organizational:

Why have you become a WDDM member?

What should WDDM try to achieve?

Does WDDM need a decision making mechanism (voting)?

Is there any point to wait any longer that any spontaneous progress (self-organization) will be made on issues that were moved to AdjournedHistoricalTopics section?

Should instead a small group of active WDDM members formulate all the basic documents (Mission. Goals, Rules, Voting procedures)?

Do you want to be a part of the group?

Should the WDDM mailing list be fully moderated (any postings would have to be approved by one or two moderators to avoid tons of junk mail)?